Corona Beer Founder Makes Everyone In His Tiny Home Village A Millionaire

Corona Beer Founder Makes Everyone In His Tiny Home Village A Millionaire

Back in August, Antonino Fernández, the founder of the Corona beer empire, died at the age of 98. And in news that has just recently emerged, he left a little surprise for the residents of a poor town in which he grew up.
Cerezales del Condado is a small town of 80 people in Spain. When Fernández was growing up as one of 13 children, his family battled poverty. Like many children in the area, he had to drop out of school at 14 so he could help his family by working in the fields.
But this week, the town had jubilant celebrations after it emerged that Fernández had left every single person in the town 2.35 million euros ($2.5 million) in his will. That's a total of $210 million if you're counting.

Maximino Sanchez, who owns a bar in the village, told the Diario de León newspaper: “We never had any pesete (money) before. I don’t know, what we would have done without Antonino.”
Following the devastating Spanish Civil War, Fernández moved to the town of Leon in northern Spain, where he married his wife Cinia González Díez.
Fernández moved to Mexico in 1949, at age 32, to work in the warehouse of his wife's uncle. He worked his way up through the ranks, becoming CEO in 1971, and eventually using that position to found Corona, one of the biggest beer companies in the world.
This move is no surprise to those who knew Fernández, the billionaire was honored by the former King of Spain for charitable deeds. His most notable was the establishment of a service that helped disabled people look for work.
The village is also getting a brand new cultural center, paid for out of his inheritance and a local non-profit foundation with 300 employees is getting an undisclosed amount of money.

According to widespread reports by British media outlets, Antonino Fernandez, who was the CEO of Grupo Modelo, the brewery company who make Corona beer, left 200m euros (£169) to 80 residents of Cerezales, the village of Leon province where he was born and raised. Fernandez, who migrated to Mexico in 1949 when he was 32, died in August. He was 99 years old and a billionaire. But the Fundación Cerezales Antonino y Cinia, a cultural and contemporary art center established by Fernandez, categorically denied these reports. "I can confirm he didn't leave money to his villagers in his will," Lucia Alajos, the Foundation's communications department chief told Mashable. "His family recently opened his will and we actually don't know who got the money from the inheritance. But it's definitely not the town or his neighbours. "Some family members have a house in the village, but they don't live there. They just come during the holidays."A host of British news organisations, including The Daily Mail, cited a report on the local paper Diario de Leon as the main source for the story.